海角大神

Escargot is more than just a modern delicacy: Ancient humans who lived 30,000 years ago ate the mollusks too, a new archaeological excavation has revealed.

Hundreds of burnt snail shells were found near fireplaces along with tools and other animal remains in rock shelters along a cliff in Spain. The finding suggests Paleolithic people on the Iberian Peninsula ate snails more than 10,000 years earlier than those who lived in the neighboring Mediterranean region.

The snails probably didn't make up a calorically significant part of these听, but may have provided key vitamins and nutrients, said study lead author Javier Fern谩ndez-L贸pez de Pablo, an archaeologist at the Institut Catal脿 de Paleoecologia Humana i Evoluci贸 Social in Spain. []

Snail's pace

听may have munched on sea slugs, but there isn't much evidence that modern humans ate land-based snails until about 20,000 years ago, Fern谩ndez said.

"Even though land snails are very present in paleolithic sites, the interpretation of snails as a food resource is very complicated," Fern谩ndez told Live Science.

For one, snails live in the dirt, so it's conceivable they accumulated naturally after dying there. And other predators that eat the mollusks, such as hedgehogs or birds, could also have left snail shells behind after eating the shells' occupants, Fern谩ndez said.

Paleo appetizer

Fern谩ndez and his colleagues were excavating a site in Benidorm, Spain, about three years ago when they came upon signs of ancient inhabitants. The site, called Cova de la Barriada, contained ancient fireplaces,听, animal bones 鈥� and hundreds of snail shells close to the evidence of ancient cooking. The other animal bones found at the site appeared to have been intentionally fractured by people to extract the marrow, Fern谩ndez said.

The snail shells were burnt and all came from the same species,听Iberus alonensis,听which even today is a delicacy often found in Spanish dishes like paella,听Fern谩ndez said.

The snail shells were also found along with charcoals of pine and juniper. In addition, the snails were all about the same size, indicating they were harvested when they were fully grown, at about 1 year old.

Together, the findings suggest the ancient inhabitants of the region ate the snails as a regular part of the diet. Snails are rich sources of vitamins A, B3, B6 and B12, and also provide a hearty helping of cholesterol, he said.

By harvesting only adults, the ancient people had developed a "sustainable" farming practice that, based on the size of snail shells found in multiple geologic layers, lasted for 4,000 years, Fern谩ndez said.

It's not clear why people were eating snails at this time and not earlier, but human cultures were going through a transition at this point, with the emergence of new artistic expression in听听and living in larger settlements. So it's possible that society was also changing in ways that enabled them to use dietary resources in their environment more effectively, Fern谩ndez said.

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